Develop Reference

What is the conventional way to convert a range of bits to an integer value in c# .net?

I've been programming for many years, but have never needed to use bitwise operations too much or really deal with data too much on a bit or even byte level, until now. So, please forgive my lack of knowledge.
I'm having to process streaming message frame data that I'm getting via socket communication. The message frames are a series of hex bytes encoded Big Endian which I read into a byte array called byteArray. Take the following 2 bytes for example:
0x03 0x20
The data I need is represented in the first 14 bits - meaning I need to convert the first 14 bits into an int value. (The last 2 bits represent 2 other bool values). I have coded the following to accomplish this:
if (BitConverter.IsLittleEndian)
{
Array.Reverse(byteArray);
}
BitArray bitArray = GetBitArrayFromRange(new BitArray(byteArray), 0, 14);
int dataValue = GetIntFromBitArray(bitArray)
The dataValue variable ends up with the correct result which is: 800
The two functions I'm calling are here:
private static BitArray GetBitArrayFromRange(BitArray bitArray, int startIndex, int length)
{
var newBitArray = new BitArray(length);
for (int i = startIndex; i < length; i++)
{
newBitArray[i] = bitArray.Get(i);
}
return newBitArray;
}
private static int GetIntFromBitArray(BitArray bitArray)
{
int[] array = new int[1];
bitArray.CopyTo(array, 0);
return array[0];
}
Since I have a lack of experience in this area, my question is: Does this code look correct/reasonable? Or, is there a more preferred/conventional way of accomplishing what I need?
Thanks!

"The dataValue variable ends up with the correct result which is: 800"
Shouldn't that correct result be actually 200?
1) 00000011 00100001 : is integer 0x0321 (so now skip beginning two bits 01...)
2) xx000000 11001000 : is extracted last 14 bits (missing 2 bits, so those xx count as zero)
3) 00000000 11001000 : is expected final result from 14-bits extraction = 200
At present it looks like you have an empty (zero filled) 16 bits into which you put the 14 bits. Somehow you putting in exact same position (left-hand side instead of right-hand side)
Original bits : 00000011 00100001
Slots 16 bit : XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
Instead of this : XX000000 11001000 //correct way
You have done : 00000011 001000XX //wrong way
Your right-hand side XX are zero so your result is 00000011 00100000 which would give 800, but that's wrong because it's not the true value of those specific 14 bits you extracted.
"Is there a more preferred/conventional way of accomplishing what I
need?"
I guess bit-shifting is the conventional way...
Solution (pseudo-code) :
var myShort = 0x0321; //Short means 2 bytes
var answer = (myShort >> 2); //bitshift to right-hand side by 2 places
By nudging everything 2 places/slots towards right, you can see how the two now-empty places at far-left becomes the XX (automatically zero until you change them), and by nudging you have also just removed the (right-side) 2 bits you wanted to ignore... Leaving you with correct 14-bit value.
PS:
Regarding your code... I've not had chance to test it all but the below logic seems more appropriate for your GetBitArrayFromRange function :
for (int i = 0; i < (length-1); i++)
{
newBitArray[i] = bitArray.Get(startIndex + i);
}

How to make subtraction in numeric strings while holding the string length fixed in C#?

8654 -> 8653; 1000 -> 0999; 0100 -> 0099; 0024 -> 0023; 0010 -> 0009; 0007 -> 0006 etc.
I have a string variable of fixed length 4; its characters are always numbers. I want to make subtraction while obeying the given rule that its length of 4 must be protected.
What I tried: Convert.ToInt32, .Length operations etc. In my code, I always faced some sort of errors.
I devised that I can do this via 3 steps:
1. Convert the string value to an (int) integer
2. Subtract "1" in that integer to find a new integer
3. Add "4 - length of new integer" times "0" to the beginning.
Anyway, independent of the plotted solution above (since I am a newbee; perhaps even my thought may divert a standard user from a normal plausible approach for solution), is not there a way to perform the above via a function or something else in C#?

A number doesn't have a format, it's string representation has a format.
The steps you outlined for performing the arithmetic and outputting the result are correct. I would suggest using PadLeft to output the result in the desired format:
int myInt = int.Parse("0100");
myInt = myInt - 1;
string output = myInt.ToString().PadLeft(4, '0');
//Will output 0099

Your steps are almost right, however there is a easier way to accomplish getting the leading 0's, use Numeric string formatting. Using the formatting string "D4" it will behave exactly like you want.
var oldString = "1000";
var oldNum = Convert.ToInt32(oldString);
var newNum = oldNum - 1;
var newString = newNum.ToString("D4");
Console.WriteLine(newString); //prints "0999"
Click to run example
You could also use the custom formatting string "0000".

Well, I think others have implemented what you have implemented already. The reason might be that you didn't post your code. But none of the answers addresses your main question...
Your approach is totally fine. To make it reusable, you need to put it into a method. A method can look like this:
private string SubtractOnePreserveLength(string originalNumber)
{
// 1. Convert the string value to an (int) integer
// 2. Subtract "1" in that integer to find a new integer
// 3. Add "4 - length of new integer" times "0" to the beginning.
return <result of step 3 >;
}
You can then use the method like this:
string result = SubtractOnePreserveLength("0100");
// result is 0099

How to (theoretically) print all possible double precision numbers in C#?

For a little personal research project I want to generate a string list of all possible values a double precision floating point number can have.
I've found the "r" formatting option, which guarantees that the string can be parsed back into the exact same bit representation:
string s = myDouble.ToString("r");
But how to generate all possible bit combinations? Preferably ordered by value.
Maybe using the unchecked keyword somehow?
unchecked
{
//for all long values
myDouble[i] = myLong++;
}
Disclaimer: It's more a theoretical question, I am not going to read all the numbers... :)

using unsafe code:
ulong i = 0; //long is 64 bit, like double
unsafe
{
double* d = (double*)&i;
for(;i<ulong.MaxValue;i++)
Console.WriteLine(*d);
}

You can start with all possible values 0 <= x < 1. You can create those by having zero for exponent and use different values for the mantissa.
The mantissa is stored in 52 bits of the 64 bits that make a double precision number, so that makes for 2 ^ 52 = 4503599627370496 different numbers between 0 and 1.
From the description of the decimal format you can figure out how the bit pattern (eight bytes) should be for those numbers, then you can use the BitConverter.ToDouble method to do the conversion.
Then you can set the first bit to make the negative version of all those numbers.
All those numbers are unique, beyond that you will start getting duplicate values because there are several ways to express the same value when the exponent is non-zero. For each new non-zero exponent you would get the value that were not possible to express with the previously used expontents.
The values between 0 and 1 will however keep you busy for the forseeable future, so you can just start with those.

This should be doable in safe code: Create a bit string. Convert that to a double. Output. Increment. Repeat.... A LOT.
string bstr = "01010101010101010101010101010101"; // this is 32 instead of 64, adjust as needed
long v = 0;
for (int i = bstr.Length - 1; i >= 0; i--) v = (v << 1) + (bstr[i] - '0');
double d = BitConverter.ToDouble(BitConverter.GetBytes(v), 0);
// increment bstr and loop

1000 digit number in C#

I am working on Project Euler and ran into an issue.
I am unable to use a 1000 digit number and wanted to know if I am doing something wrong or am just going about this solution in the wrong way and if so what would be best approach be?
C#
namespace ToThePowerOf
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
BigInteger n = 1;
int x = 0;
BigInteger [] number;
number = new BigInteger[149194];
number[x] = 1;
number[x + 1] = 1;
x = 3; ;
BigInteger check = 10000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000;
for (int i = 99; i > 0; i--)
{
n = (n - 1) + (n - 2);
number[x] = n;
x++;
if (n > check)
{
Console.WriteLine(x);
}
}
}
}
}

I'm guessing the 'issue' you ran into (would be helpful to include error message) is that the compiler doesn't like the integer literal with 1000 digits so you can't initialise it with a very large integer literal. As others have noted, breaking the integer literal into multiple lines isn't valid either.
The number[x] = 1; lines work because the compiler can handle the integer literal 1 and because we're assigning it to a BigInteger it uses BigInteger's implicit operator to convert it to a BigInteger.
One simple method to get around your problem with the big integer literal is to use the BigInteger.Parse method to create your 1000 digit number.
BigInteger check = BigInteger.Parse("10000....", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
Another method could be to initialise it with a small int, then use maths to get to the number you want, as in Jon Skeet's answer.

There's no literal support for BigInteger in C#. So while using BigInteger isn't incorrect, you'll need to work out a different way of instantiating it - e.g. new BigInteger(10).Pow(1000).

Such a big literal isn't possible. Integer literals can be at most 64 bits.
To get a large biginteger, you can either convert from string, or calculate the number instead of hardcoding it. In your case calculating it with BigInteger.Pow(10, digits) is the cleanest solution.

I'm still unsure on the BigInteger handling in C#, however on the Project Euler question you refer to. You can read the number in letter by letter from a text file and convert to an int. Then do the multiplications and checks. Not elegant but it works!
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.filestream.aspx for syntax ref.

I'm probably really late on this, but what I did was take every number and make it a separate object within an array. I then took the first 5 numbers of the array and multiplied them together and set them to a variable. If they were greater than the max, I set it to the max. I then went on to the next set for numbers 1-6 and did the same etc. I did get an out of range exception. In which case you use a try and get format until you receive this exception. If you want to see the code, I will edit my response, but to save you time on the array, if you still want to attempt this, I will give you the array.
long[] a;
a = new long[] {
7,3,1,6,7,1,7,6,5,3,1,3,3,0,6,2,4,9,1,9,2,2,5,1,1,9,6,7,4,4,2,6,5,7,4,7,4,2,3,5,5,3,4,9,1,9,4,9,3,4,
9,6,9,8,3,5,2,0,3,1,2,7,7,4,5,0,6,3,2,6,2,3,9,5,7,8,3,1,8,0,1,6,9,8,4,8,0,1,8,6,9,4,7,8,8,5,1,8,4,3,
8,5,8,6,1,5,6,0,7,8,9,1,1,2,9,4,9,4,9,5,4,5,9,5,0,1,7,3,7,9,5,8,3,3,1,9,5,2,8,5,3,2,0,8,8,0,5,5,1,1,
1,2,5,4,0,6,9,8,7,4,7,1,5,8,5,2,3,8,6,3,0,5,0,7,1,5,6,9,3,2,9,0,9,6,3,2,9,5,2,2,7,4,4,3,0,4,3,5,5,7,
6,6,8,9,6,6,4,8,9,5,0,4,4,5,2,4,4,5,2,3,1,6,1,7,3,1,8,5,6,4,0,3,0,9,8,7,1,1,1,2,1,7,2,2,3,8,3,1,1,3,
6,2,2,2,9,8,9,3,4,2,3,3,8,0,3,0,8,1,3,5,3,3,6,2,7,6,6,1,4,2,8,2,8,0,6,4,4,4,4,8,6,6,4,5,2,3,8,7,4,9,
3,0,3,5,8,9,0,7,2,9,6,2,9,0,4,9,1,5,6,0,4,4,0,7,7,2,3,9,0,7,1,3,8,1,0,5,1,5,8,5,9,3,0,7,9,6,0,8,6,6,
7,0,1,7,2,4,2,7,1,2,1,8,8,3,9,9,8,7,9,7,9,0,8,7,9,2,2,7,4,9,2,1,9,0,1,6,9,9,7,2,0,8,8,8,0,9,3,7,7,6,
6,5,7,2,7,3,3,3,0,0,1,0,5,3,3,6,7,8,8,1,2,2,0,2,3,5,4,2,1,8,0,9,7,5,1,2,5,4,5,4,0,5,9,4,7,5,2,2,4,3,
5,2,5,8,4,9,0,7,7,1,1,6,7,0,5,5,6,0,1,3,6,0,4,8,3,9,5,8,6,4,4,6,7,0,6,3,2,4,4,1,5,7,2,2,1,5,5,3,9,7,
5,3,6,9,7,8,1,7,9,7,7,8,4,6,1,7,4,0,6,4,9,5,5,1,4,9,2,9,0,8,6,2,5,6,9,3,2,1,9,7,8,4,6,8,6,2,2,4,8,2,
8,3,9,7,2,2,4,1,3,7,5,6,5,7,0,5,6,0,5,7,4,9,0,2,6,1,4,0,7,9,7,2,9,6,8,6,5,2,4,1,4,5,3,5,1,0,0,4,7,4,
8,2,1,6,6,3,7,0,4,8,4,4,0,3,1,9,9,8,9,0,0,0,8,8,9,5,2,4,3,4,5,0,6,5,8,5,4,1,2,2,7,5,8,8,6,6,6,8,8,1,
1,6,4,2,7,1,7,1,4,7,9,9,2,4,4,4,2,9,2,8,2,3,0,8,6,3,4,6,5,6,7,4,8,1,3,9,1,9,1,2,3,1,6,2,8,2,4,5,8,6,
1,7,8,6,6,4,5,8,3,5,9,1,2,4,5,6,6,5,2,9,4,7,6,5,4,5,6,8,2,8,4,8,9,1,2,8,8,3,1,4,2,6,0,7,6,9,0,0,4,2,
2,4,2,1,9,0,2,2,6,7,1,0,5,5,6,2,6,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,0,9,3,7,0,5,4,4,2,1,7,5,0,6,9,4,1,6,5,8,9,6,0,4,0,8,
0,7,1,9,8,4,0,3,8,5,0,9,6,2,4,5,5,4,4,4,3,6,2,9,8,1,2,3,0,9,8,7,8,7,9,9,2,7,2,4,4,2,8,4,9,0,9,1,8,8,
8,4,5,8,0,1,5,6,1,6,6,0,9,7,9,1,9,1,3,3,8,7,5,4,9,9,2,0,0,5,2,4,0,6,3,6,8,9,9,1,2,5,6,0,7,1,7,6,0,6,
0,5,8,8,6,1,1,6,4,6,7,1,0,9,4,0,5,0,7,7,5,4,1,0,0,2,2,5,6,9,8,3,1,5,5,2,0,0,0,5,5,9,3,5,7,2,9,7,2,5,
7,1,6,3,6,2,6,9,5,6,1,8,8,2,6,7,0,4,2,8,2,5,2,4,8,3,6,0,0,8,2,3,2,5,7,5,3,0,4,2,0,7,5,2,9,6,3,4,5,0
};

How can I perform division in a program, digit by digit?

I'm messing around with writing a class similar to mpz (C) or BigInteger (Java). This is just for fun, so please don't go on about how I shouldn't be writing my own.
I have a class similar to:
public class HugeInt
{
public List<Integer> digits;
public HugeInt(String value)
{
// convert string value into its seperate digits.
// store them in instance variable above
}
}
Now, doing the add() and subtract() method of this class are pretty simple. Here is an example:
private List<Integer> add(List<Integer> a, List<Integer> b)
{
List<Integer> smallerDigits = (compareDigits(a,b) < 0) ? a : b;
List<Integer> largerDigits = (compareDigits(a,b) >= 0) ? a : b;
List<Integer> result = new ArrayList<Integer>();
int carry = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < largerDigits.size(); i++)
{
int num1 = largerDigits.get(i);
int num2 = (i < smallerDigits.size()) ? smallerDigits.get(i) : 0;
result.add((num1 + num2 + carry) % 10);
carry = ((num1 + num2 + carry) / 10);
}
if (carry != 0) result.add(carry);
return result;
}
Similarly, doing the multiply wasn't that hard either.
I see on wikipedia there is a page on Division Algorithms, but I'm not sure which one is appropriate for what I'm trying to do.
Because these positive integers (represented as digits) can be arbitrarily long, I want to make sure I don't attempt to do any operations on anything other than digit-by-digit basis.
However, can anyone point me in the right direction for doing a division of two numbers that are represented as List<Integer>'s? Also, I can ignore the remainder as this is integer division.

You could just do long division, but this certainly isn't the optimal way to do it (edit: although it seems that something like this is a good way to do it). You could look at other implementations of big integer libraries, and a bit of Googling turns up a fair bit of useful information.

This may be a slight overkill, but if this is the kind of things you do for fun, you'll enjoy reading this:
http://www.fizyka.umk.pl/nrbook/c20-6.pdf
(that's "Arithmetic at Arbitrary Precision" from "Numerical recipes in C").
Pretty fascinating, as is most of this book, with good explanations and lots of code.

Since I assume you're just dealing with integer division it's not very hard. Multiplication is repeated addition, division is the opposite - repeated subtraction. So what you'll do is check how many times you can subtract the divisor from the dividend. For example, 3 can be subtracted from 10 3 times without going <0, so the integer division quotient is 3.

This article A Larger Integer does not show how to implement digit by digit operations for "larger integers", but it does show how to implement a (apparently fully functional) 128 bit integer in terms of two Int64 types. I would imagine that it would not be too hard to extend the approach to use an array of Int64 types to yield an arbitary length integer. I just spent a few minutes looking back over the article and the implementation of multiply looks like it could get pretty involved for arbitrary length.
The article shows how to implement division (quotient and remainder) using binary division.